


Inordinate Affection and Evil Concupiscence

by jedishampoo



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Regency, Demon in the Basement, M/M, Sex-Demon, vicars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 11:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedishampoo/pseuds/jedishampoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Reverend Gen Sanford is faced with a vexing situation! Sorting it out may require indulging in activities that are not quite proper.  Hakkai/Sanzo Regency AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inordinate Affection and Evil Concupiscence

**Warnings:** Bad language; period-specific homophobia and laws and other non-PC terms (pretty light, however); dubcon if you squint.   
**Author's notes:** Written for rachel_reicheru in the 7thnight_smut comm on Dreamwidth. Prompt was for Sanzo as a priest, any time period, and Hakkai is a demon chain ed up in his basement. It was oodles of fun to write! Much love to my betas whymz, despina and sharpeslass, and to the Merciful Goddess for her work.  
  
 **Inordinate Affection and Evil Concupiscence**  
  
  
  
 _Year of Our Lord 1813, June 11. A Friday._  
  
The Reverend Gen Sanford sat at his desk and rubbed his eyes, unable to focus on the page before him. He was terribly vexed.  
  
It had been his congregation that had done it, his flock in his parish, his gaggle of blithering idiots. Thus Sanford supposed it was his problem to deal with. His problem to confine in the cellar of his rectory, at least until he could locate a bishop with enough Scripture in his brain-box and faith in his belly to exorcise it.  
  
Books. Not only had they burned books, those precious troves of knowledge both rational and fantastical, but they'd burned Lady Kanzefour's books, she who had given Sanford his living and expected him to safeguard the spiritual well-being of her tenants and neighbors.  
  
Had she expected him to safeguard her books? One might not think so, given that she'd left a crew of servants behind even as she'd departed to travel on the continent, but then one might often underestimate or misunderstand the odd Lady Kanzefour. She'd been born of a French father, which explained a great deal of her eccentricity. But like Sanford, she treasured the knowledge found on the printed page and kept a library of rare tomes from around the world.  
  
And the villagers had come but a few nights past, on Monday eve, brandishing torches like the veriest fools of peasants, seeking the "Books of the Devil" discovered by that silly chambermaid Peg. She'd been hired only a fortnight ago to replace the last girl, who'd eloped with one of the stable boys; Peg in turn had been seduced by that traveling preacher, a black-haired rabble-rouser who'd put the fear of hellfire into the local farmers.  
  
Sanford had tried to chase him out of the parish with a rifle in hand, and the man had been running far enough ahead of him that he'd thought to have succeeded. But the blackguard had come back and convinced Peg to steal the books, and she'd done so right under the nose of Lady Kanzefour's nodcock of a butler, Chinese Jim.  
  
Sanford had heard the ruckus and jumped out of his bed and grabbed his rifle to halt the bonfire, but had not arrived before a goodly part of My Lady's Oriental collection was naught but ash in the east five-acre and the black-haired revivalist was long gone, Peg along with him.  
  
"One would think you were Americans, damned yahoos who weren't civilized enough for your own English religion," he'd cursed at them from the pulpit on Wednesday. They'd been properly cowed and had bent their heads and mumbled apologies at him and filled the collection box to overflowing. They had no idea what they'd wrought, and he would not tell them. But still. The books were gone and Sanford had been left with ... _it._  
  
He'd discovered _it_ the following morning. He'd gone to the east five-acre to assess the damage in the morning light, and where he'd have sworn the night before was naught but a pile of smoking paper, was a — a man. Of sorts. Sanford had pointed his rifle at him.  
  
He had been naked, well-formed, and covered in heathen-looking tattoos, sinuous green vines that decorated him from tip to toe, curling up his slimly muscular calves and over his taut belly and chest to wind in seductive swirls about his green eyes. Damn his eyes, anyway, that Sanford had noticed his nakedness so.  
  
The man — creature — demon — had hair as black as that slime of a preacher's, and his eyes were as almond-shaped as Chinese Jim's. He'd looked at Sanford and muttered words in an unrecognizable language.  
  
"What the bloody damnation are you doing here, and when are you leaving?" Sanford replied. The demon's eyes widened for a moment, and then he blinked and took a deep breath.   
  
"Pardon me. I seem to have become separated from my world. Perhaps you can access. Er, assist?" he said, suddenly as posh as a lord.  
  
"Who the hell are you? Don't move!" Sanford said, waving the business end of his rifle as the demon attempted to push himself into a sitting position.  
  
The demon lay back and stared at Sanford with his green, tattoo-rimmed eyes and took another breath. "I am Hakkai, a third-level youkai in the court of Zakuro the Salacious. A demon, I suppose you might call me. Might I know your name, sir?"  
  
"That's none of your damned business, and stop bamming me," Sanford said.   
  
"I promise you, I am not. I was summoned here and then left with no purpose— at least, no orders from whoever summoned me. I am becoming quite sure you can help me, though," Hakkai-the-third-level-youkai said. And then he narrowed his eyes and licked his lips, and his gaze traveled up and down Sanford's serviceable brown hunting jacket and trousers quite ... Sanford supposed he might call it _salaciously_. The demon raised a hand, and tiny vines began to snake from his long fingernails, questing towards Sanford, and Sanford fired.  
  
The demon had finally quieted once bloody and pumped full of buckshot, but Sanford had watched as the wounds he'd inflicted had begun to close, right before his very eyes, and as life seemed to return to the demon's formerly dead countenance. So Sanford had rammed the butt of his rifle into the demon's forehead and then dragged him back to the rectory as quickly as he could. He'd pulled him down to the cellar and tied him up with some of his best rope and surrounded him with a stacked ring of whatever hymnals and Bibles he'd been able to find.  
  
The rectory cellar was where the demon dwelled still, three days later. The holy circle seemed to be holding him secure, but so far Sanford had been unable to figure out how to send him back whence he had sprung.  
  
Sanford himself was no exorcist, only a country parson, and that was what he wished to remain. He had written a terse and urgent note to his Bishop requesting assistance with a matter of utmost spiritual import, but as yet the Bishop had neither responded nor arrived to take care of the situation.  
  
So there it was: Sanford's problem. He wiped at his eyes one more time and readied his pen over the nearly blank page but still could not seem to find proper words for Sunday's sermon. All his tired and annoyed brain could conjure were further diatribes on the idiocy of uncivilized religions. While he longed to further berate his flock and perhaps use his fists to draw the cork of each member individually, such a course of action would be ultimately unproductive.   
  
He mentally cursed them, however, along with the bishop and his absent curate, George Sunworthy. George was due back tomorrow, Saturday, and glad Sanford was for it.   
  
"Visiting his ailing cousin, indeed. Bollocks," Sanford said aloud, and then cursed himself for doing so. He took a sip of rectory wine and decided he needed some fresh air.  
  
Outside in his seat under the shade of the alder-tree, he smoked his pipe, inhaling lungfuls of delightful American tobacco. It never failed to calm him, to help him think.   
  
The thing was, thinking only caused more problems. His worldview had been sorely shaken: never had he really believed in hell, in demons. Certainly he'd not imagined a court of Zakuro the Salacious. Neither his education at Oxford nor his calling (and comfortable living, provided by Lady Kanzefour) had convinced him deep in his soul that there were truly other worlds where the spirit dwelt after life. He knew he was something of a traitor to the cloth to believe so, but there it was.   
  
He did not despise his religion; in fact, it provided a convenient and relatable set of beliefs and rules around which to order one's own life and the lives of his neighbors, gave them a measure of discipline along with purpose and hope. But in his heart of hearts he'd always assumed that one's next life would be much the same as this one — that as the Easterners believed, upon death one's energy would simply return to the cradle of this world.  
  
Then he'd met Hakkai, third-level youkai. Sanford tried to tell himself that Hakkai was a man, one merely touched in the upper works and made stronger by his madness. But not everything Hakkai did or said could be explained by laws of the natural world. It was annoying. It was made moreso by some of the other arcane effects of Hakkai's presence in his life.  
  
He'd noticed those effects as he'd found Hakkai naked in the blackened pile of what had been some of My Lady's very rare and expensive books. And he'd noticed them again when he'd visited Hakkai in the cellar later that evening.  
  
"I do not require food or drink, thank you," Hakkai had said, watching Sanford through seductively slender eyes as he'd set a glass of wine and a plate of teacakes on the table by the cellar stairs.  
  
"Good, because these aren't for you," Sanford said. He pulled up one of the scratched wooden chairs that had used to grace the rectory's kitchen. He sat in it. He looked at Hakkai, who was clothed in one of Sanford's old nightshirts. He was seated cross-legged on the floor, his vine-tattooed hands wrapped and bound to the cellar post behind him. He regarded Sanford back with a steady green gaze.   
  
"Will you not tell me your name, sir?" Hakkai said.  
  
Sanford _tch_ ed. "You look sly. I have no great liking for sly people. Things. In fact, I despise them."  
  
"I was merely thinking that you are very attractive," Hakkai said with a sly-damn-him smile that made Sanford's traitorously irreligious belly tremble. "I believe that sexual relations with you would be quite pleasurable."  
  
"Let me fetch my rifle," Sanford said, standing.  
  
"No, please, pardon my prurience," Hakkai said, casting his gaze down upon the dirt floor where he sat. "It is but my own blightful— um, blighted?— nature, getting the better of me."  
  
Sanford unclenched his fists and mentally cursed himself for his curiosity. "And what nature would that be?"  
  
Hakkai kept his eyes down as he answered. "Being of the court of Zakuro the Salacious, I am, of course, a sex-djinn, a youkai of love, you might call me. I was born to the circle of the learned, but circumstances forced me to assume a baser role."  
  
Sanford was unfamiliar with the term "youkai," but he had read the works of Thomas Aquinas. He _hmph_ ed. "So you believe yourself an incubus."  
  
Hakkai looked up at that and narrowed his eyes. "Most certainly not, Sir! I am nothing so vulgar."  
  
"I beg your — Goddammit," Sanford said, choosing blasphemy over tongue-biting to stop the unwarranted apology. "Your blasted delusions are unfamiliar to me and more annoying for being so."  
  
"They are no delusions, I assure you. Shall I prove my origin?" Hakkai said. There was a skritching noise, like the slithering of a snake in the dirt, and the ropes fell free of Hakkai's wrists. He raised his hands palms up at Sanford, who turned to race up the stairs for the rifle he never should have dammit left behind, but Hakkai called out. "No, please! I promise that your circle has me quite secured! Only see."  
  
Despite himself Sanford looked back. Those unworldly and yet sensuous green vines extruded from Hakkai's fingers, waving about but stopped cold in midair just at the inner border of Bibles and hymnals. "You are deceiving me in some way, and I won't have it, you ass," Sanford said, fingering the cross at his belt.  
  
"No, I swear. A book was the portal through which I was called into your world, and thus books are my prison. The prison is not necessary of course; I give you my word that I will not harm you, for I believe that only you can assist me with returning home. But I suppose you wouldn't trust my word."   
  
Sanford shook his head slowly, unable to tamp down the wonderment he felt at beholding such a supernatural spectacle. "No, I wouldn't."  
  
Hakkai's shoulders slumped and the vines disappeared back under the sleeves of his borrowed nightshirt. "Perhaps yet I shall convince you, through my good behavior."  
  
"Not bloody likely," Sanford said. He slumped a little as well, releasing some tension. Nevertheless, he was too shaken to continue the interrogation that night. He gathered his wine and his plate and prepared to head back upstairs.   
  
"Will you please, at least, enlighten me as to how I should address you?" Hakkai said as Sanford started up the stairs.  
  
Sanford had sighed. "I am the Reverend Gen Sanford, Vicar of St. Thomas and St. Theroux. I am a man of God. And I will get to the bottom of your damned mystery, never fear," Sanford had said, stomping up the stairs.  
  
As he'd shut the cellar door, Sanford was almost certain he'd heard a low and breathy voice say, "Oh, I do hope so."  
  
***  
  
That voice had been all that was proper, yet something in it had spoken to Sanford's body, his very limbs and skin and breath. Sanford smoked under the alder tree and knew the effects had not yet dissipated, though Hakkai was nowhere near him. Those physical discomforts, Sanford decided, spoke more to the truthfulness of Hakkai's demonic nature than did even his demonstrations of supernatural ability.  
  
Sanford had gone back; that had been Tuesday, that first visit, and at first light Wednesday he'd sent the note via post boy to the Bishop. He'd then written the Wednesday evening lecture-cum-sermon that had blistered the ears of his congregation but had done little to cool the unlooked-for ardor growing in his flesh.  
  
That night had been sleepless and had accorded much time for personal reflection and thought. By Thursday, temptation and lust for knowledge had overtaken him, and he'd descended into the cellar to check on the progress of his apparently demonic captive.  
  
Still Hakkai was unbound, yet still he sat upon the cellar floor within the circle of books. Somehow he appeared clean and neat, as if he'd not been sitting in dark and dirt. He would have appeared civilized were it not for his bare legs and the mysterious decoration of his skin. He was calmly reading.  
  
"I bid you good afternoon, Reverend," Hakkai said, looking up from a hymnal as Sanford entered.  
  
"I bid you no such thing in return," Sanford said. He sat upon the chair, laying his rifle upon his knees.   
  
Hakkai acknowledged this parry with a short nod. "A pity we cannot be civil, for there are many items I would discuss with you. I have been reading about your God, you see, and I have discovered some quite fascinating things."  
  
Sanford blinked and took a moment to compose himself. After his night of insomnolent rumination, he had many questions he would have liked to ask. Many of them sprung from his lack of heartfelt dedication to his faith, or to an intellectual desire for enlightenment. However, he settled with, "If your manner of being is such as you say, thou foul demon, then how is it you speak the King's English?"  
  
"Ah ha ha," Hakkai said, marking his place in the hymnal with a long, elegant finger. "As progeny of the learned, and as one who may be called between the worlds, I was early on exposed to many modes of communication."  
  
Sanford sniffed. "What language did you speak when first you hailed me?"  
  
"A dialect of Chinese, since most summonings to this world carry my kind to China."  
  
"Hmm," Sanford said. It could not but make sense to him; it had been My Lady's Eastern collection that had burned, a collection that had been most specifically chosen by that black-haired scoundrel of a preacher. "Who called you?"  
  
"I fear I know not," Hakkai replied. He made a motion with his hand towards the join of his nose and forehead, a motion that looked habitual, then halted the movement and stroked his chin. "There was fire, there were voices of many, and thus I was called. The first sentient being I saw when I awoke from the ash was you, Reverend. This might explain my imprint upon you."  
  
"Imprint?" Sanford ground out. He felt his face heat and hoped his flush was not visible. "What do you mean by that, you cur?"  
  
Hakkai's eyes narrowed in that way Sanford had come to associate with things sensual, prurient, salacious. "Why, that were my calling to be executed upon you, my duty in this world would be completed and I would return home. I did say that I found you comely."  
  
"Stop it," Sanford said, looking away.   
  
He despised when people commented upon his appearance. He strove to make himself remote, as pious in appearance as possible, to deter such attentions, but somehow he was pleasing to the eyes of others. He did not need nor seek such attractiveness.  
  
One solution to that problem would have been to marry. The Church of England, unlike that sect that bound his Papist contemporaries, had no qualms about clergymen marrying and even encouraged it. But Sanford had little to no interest in women, and, he'd discovered, little enough interest in men that he'd but once in his early youth indulged his lusts, an experimentation that had temporarily satisfied his body but had sealed in his mind a discomfort with such prolonged intimacy. Also, there were laws.  
  
"I have explained my nature to you," Hakkai said, causing Sanford to look at him with wariness. "I do not deny that nature, though my readings have informed me that in your world, such denial is customary. Nay, demanded. How unfortunate."  
  
He nodded at a Bible that lay skewed atop his prison. Sanford felt his eyes widen in wonder.   
  
"You have read that book?" Sanford had to ask.  
  
"I did, last evening. Quite enlightening."  
  
"All of it."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Through what vile sorcery did you complete this task?"  
  
Hakkai smiled and set his hands upon his knees. "I am merely a quite insatiable reader."  
  
"Among other things."  
  
"Indeed."  
  
Sanford released a snort. "I see your eyes have not been burned out of your head, nor your fingers blighted by its holy power."  
  
"No. The paper upon which it is printed is quite fine, I must say."  
  
"It is," Sanford said, then "damn it all," because he did not want to have civil conversations with this unholy and distracting creature. Still, many questions threatened to spill from his tongue. _Have you heard of God? Does He exist, in a sphere outside yours or mine?_ "So did you recognize your home in that book?" At a politely inquiring tilt of the head from Hakkai, Sanford spit it out. "Hell, you fool."  
  
"No. That place is unfamiliar to me."  
  
"Impossible." Sanford stood, his fingers shaking around his rifle. "What other ways are there to send you back to your world? Don't say ... that, unless you want me to thrash you until your return to this form would be more painful than worth it."  
  
Hakkai had frowned and clasped his knees all the more tightly. "None that I am certain of or may divulge. I, too, am bound by rules, though they differ from yours."  
  
"Damn and blast," Sanford had said and had left without another word.  
  
***  
  
In the yard, Sanford tapped ash from his pipe. That had been but the previous evening, and he had not yet gone back. He had, however, spent another restless night full of lurid dreams, of heathen tattoos doing unspeakable things.   
  
It suddenly came to him: lust. Lust would be an apt subject for the coming Sunday sermon. Sanford stood and stretched out his tired muscles, listening to the creaks and pops of perhaps not old age but a dearth of rest. Between the leaves of the trees his gaze caught a gleam of sunlight shining off red hair. Lily, the doctor's daughter, was coming to do the Friday cleaning.   
  
Sanford had a distaste for the doctor but found his offspring harmless enough. She jogged up the lane at a quick pace, quick even for a girl who customarily possessed a great deal of energy. Her eyes showed a gleam of elevated emotion. Sanford arranged his black suit in straight, repressive lines. Lily had once seemed to be sweet on him but had lately and thankfully formed a tendre for George, a much more suitable target for her affections.   
  
Her green dress, however, was less suitable for cleaning, or indeed for walking such a distance. Lily was a country girl born and bred but tried to affect Town fashions. George, more fool he, indulged her with fashion plates.  
  
Sanford cleared his throat. "Good day to you, Lily. The cellar is locked. Don't dare try to enter or it will be the worse for you."  
  
"La, I won't! Oh, Vicar!" Lily bobbed her head and took a deep breath, straining the seams of her bodice, something that Sanford attempted not to notice. "You won't believe the goings-on in Shanksford."  
  
Shanksford was the nearest hamlet, a source of many members of Sanford's congregation. "I'm sure I wouldn't care, either," he said, wishing his pipe re-lit.  
  
"It's like Solomon and Gomorrah!"  
  
"Sodom. And what the devil are you talking about, girl?"  
  
She colored and giggled. "Language, Mr. Sanford!"  
  
"Don't be a goose; I've no patience for it. Spit it out."  
  
"Ol' grump-cakes," she muttered under her breath, but as Sanford lowered his eyebrows, she resumed her excited air. "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Howmaugh aren't speaking, for the missus was all night with ... well, with my Papa, who it turns out is her sissis-beau, the naughty ol' rake. I do wish he would think of my reputation. George won't care, will 'e, do you think?"  
  
Mr. and Mrs. Howmaugh were the couple who kept the local inn. Sanford damned the impropriety of smoking around a female and shoved his pipe between his lips, fumbling in his pocket for a match. "George isn't here, and what he cares is not my concern," he said around his pipe-stem. "And perhaps you ought to stow your gab about it, if it worries you."  
  
Lily _hmph_ ed at this cant and lack of care for her good name. "Well, there's more, ain't there? Squire Koug is all in a froth between the ears because Gattis Johnson's mangy mongrel jumped the kennel and got at the Squire's prime hunting bitch. And," she said with emphasis, as Sanford blew a stream of smoke to show his irritation, "Kammy Saunders and Haze Grouse were caught in a position after midnight in Johnson's barn. Mrs. Howmaugh called it 'in fragrant delicto,' whatever that means, but I can only imagine."  
  
Surprise jolted Sanford's form at that revelation. Sodom and Gomorrah, indeed, when but a few days ago half the parish had been prepared to don sackcloth and ashes and renounce their sinful English ways. And certain laws recalled themselves to Sanford's mind. "Where are they now? The two young idio— men, that is?"  
  
"They are stowed in Papa's sheds, because he's the magistrate, of course. Until someone decides what he should do with 'em." Lily fanned her flushed face and sighed. "Mrs. Howmaugh is there, with Papa. I wish she would leave, 'cause I don't like 'er. Oh, and there's more—"  
  
"Wait," Sanford said, raising his palm. He pondered her revelations. Surely this rash of unsanctified copulation was no coincidence? Just as surely it could indeed be deemed his concern, not only as guardian of the parish souls but because he was the unlucky one with a sex-demon in his cellar. Had he himself not felt the effects of such a demon's proximity? It was becoming increasingly obvious that more urgent action was required than he'd hitherto taken upon the matter.   
  
"God-dammit," he spat as he tapped out his spent pipe upon the lane.  
  
Lily giggled once more behind a raised hand. "Language, Mr. Sanford!"  
  
"Clap it, Lily. I'm to your Papa's. And hurry your cleaning, for I've an errand in Town and intend to lock up the rectory when I leave."  
  
"Yes, Mr. Sanford," Lily said and gave a short curtsey. As she tripped up to the house Sanford heard a feminine mutter of "ol' lockjaw" but ignored it in favor of hastening to Lady Kanzefour's stables.  
  
***  
  
My Lady had left her nags at Sanford's disposal, so he called for two and informed the stable boy to be quick about it. He also commandeered a closed buggy. Once all were hitched, he tooled down the lane for Shanksford, mumbling curses to himself along the way.  
  
He was loath to rouse himself out of his comfort, but needs must, as the saying went. He somewhat wished he'd left Hakkai where he'd found him. But now he dared not turn Hakkai loose, much as he might like to, and be done with it. He also dared not leave those two foolish boys to the untender mercies of his flock, some members of which had shown shockingly bad judgment already in their methods of assuaging hypocritical guilt.  
  
It was a fine summer day, but the greenness of the trees, the audible joy of the birds, and the blues and golds of the wildflowers were wasted upon Sanford's dark mood. In Shanksford he ignored the gossipmongers lounging about the public house and the scandalized matrons attempting to hail him. He drove straight to Doctor Nils's cottage on the outskirts of the village.  
  
The doctor himself opened the door as Sanford was tying the horses to the gate-post.  
  
"Why, hullo, Mr. Sanford. What a lovely day for a visit from you," he said. He adjusted his spectacles and his lips crept upwards in a small smile.   
  
His black hair and oily, sly demeanor were notably quite similar to the features of one who'd irked Sanford but recently, and Sanford knew it was not Hakkai of whom he thought (though he did think of him too often, damn his green eyes). It struck Sanford that the doctor in such an attitude reminded him of that preacher, the one who'd caused all the trouble in the first place.  
  
But despite the resemblance and Sanford's personal antipathy, he could not lay the blame for those events at the feet of the doctor.   
  
"This is not a social call, Doctor," Sanford said without preamble, straightening and looking Dr. Nils in the eye. He pulled at the hem of his coat. "Take me to those two nodcocks — men — in your custody, that I may deal with them." He ground his teeth together. "If you would be so kind."  
  
"Oh, my," the doctor said with raised eyebrows. "But surely they must await a trial of some sort?"  
  
Sanford unclenched his fists from his coat. "I don't think that necessary. Do you?"  
  
"I wonder," the doctor drawled, shaking his head as he stepped down to where Sanford stood at the gate. "The poor, silly things. It's not like this was any surprise. But there are laws, of course. And the law of the land supercedes even that of the Lord on His earthly throne, for when in Rome, you know..."  
  
"Cockspittle," Sanford said, waving that off. "And it's not for you to quote Scripture at me. Save your words for your own profession. Where are they?"  
  
"Who is it, Doctor? It's not my—" Mrs. Howmaugh appeared on the step just then. She was a handsome, voluptuous woman of certain years, who wore her bright silver hair in an elaborate 'do. Her lips, colored a red that owed little to nature, formed an "O" of surprise. "Oh, it's the parson!"  
  
Sanford gave her but a short nod in reply and resumed his battle of wills with the doctor. "Well?"  
  
The doctor regarded him with dark eyes. He crossed his arms in his slim black coat — it was not unlike Sanford's, but he was wearing a green-and-white striped waistcoat, for God's sake; Sanford could see where Lily had inherited her trumped-up fashion sense — and he smiled fully, showing white teeth. He nodded once. "I concede, sir. You are the man of God here, after all, and as God's laws have also been violated, I'm sure I can trust you to properly conclude the matter."  
  
"And don't speak to me of God's laws, either," Sanford said, indicating Mrs. Howmaugh with a quick glance.  
  
The doctor merely laughed. "Quite right. Follow me."  
  
He held open the gate and Sanford followed him around the corner into his back garden, where he kept a trio of sheds. Normally these sheds provided storage for his physicks and powders and the other accoutrements of his trade, but on occasion they also provided temporary holding space for whatever miscreants the doctor, in his role as local magistrate, had incarcerated. Usually these included drunks and petty thieves, quickly sentenced in a permissively rural sort of manner and sent about their way to be supervised by the townspeople.  
  
But these young men ... their crime was not unheard of and not unexperienced — secretly — in Sanford's case, but in an atmosphere of extreme repentance, who knew what the local toughs might decide to do with them?  
  
With a little key, Dr. Nils released the men from the sheds, if not from the ropes that bound their hands. First out was Kammy, son of Saunders the baker, and then Haze Grouse, a young bachelor who'd wandered into town not a year since and stayed around, doing odd jobs.   
  
Haze had once tried to cajole Sanford into taking him on as curate and sponsoring him for education and orders, but Sanford hadn't liked his overly ingratiating manners. Also, he already had a curate in George.  
  
The two of them made a striking pair side-by-side, to be sure. Both of them were well of age but didn't look it, with angelic features and light golden hair and blue eyes. And both of them had voluble predilections that would indeed have made news of their alleged affair surprising to no-one. Their real crime, however, rested in being caught red-handed, or bare-arsed as the case may be.  
  
"You two are coming with me," Sanford told them.  
  
Kammy Saunders visibly sagged, though not apparently with relief. "Are you going to shoot us?"   
  
Sanford looked at Dr. Nils, who regarded all of them with an inquisitive grin. Sanford had no wish to satisfy the man's curiosity. "That remains to be discussed."  
  
"I haven't known the vicar to shoot anyone dead lately, if it eases your mind," Dr. Nils interjected.  
  
Sanford didn't dignify that with a reply. He _tch_ ed and swung about on his heel. "Follow me."  
  
He heard the sound of the young men shuffling behind him, as well as Nils's amused and false concern. "Do you require assistance, Mr. Sanford?"  
  
"No," Sanford said, quickening his pace. He was eager to get going and to extricate himself from Dr. Nils's orbit. He untied the horses and pushed Kammy and Haze into the buggy, shutting the door behind them. He hauled himself up into the driver's seat and shook the reins.   
  
Dr. Nils was still following them, dratted man. "Are you quite sure you don't need help with them, Mr. Sanford?" he said. "What if they escape? I can send a boy along, or ... Oh, what an idea! I could go with you myself—"  
  
"Cease your nagging," Sanford said, clicking the horses into a trot that jolted the carriage.  
  
He took the long way home to avoid going once more through Shanksford and its nosey population. Once safely along the road and out of anyone's earshot, he called back into the buggy, "I'm taking you fools to London, where I will set you upon paths which, if you have any brains about you, will not include gaol and will neither include a quick return to Shanksford. I trust you will go quietly? Unless you want to return to the bosom of your family, Mr. Saunders."  
  
"Nossir," Kammy assured him.   
  
It was likely that his mother would not miss him overmuch; Kammy had often been a troublemaker as well as a braggart. Sanford continued. "Start thinking upon it now, so that once in Town I may quickly wash my hands of you. Whether you go together or not, I don't bloody care, but I advise some damned discretion."  
  
"Lud, no, don't want to be with him," Sanford heard Haze mutter. "Can't stand 'im. Dunno what came over me."  
  
"You?" came Kammy's outraged tones. "More like I'd rather sit on rusty nails than have to look at your poxy phiz—"  
  
"Quiet!" Sanford roared. He risked freeing a hand from the reins to massage his temple, where a headache threatened. Hakkai was no Cupid, obviously, to bring on tender feelings as well as lustful temptation. Perhaps Sanford had never dared to truly believe in the supernatural, but once confronted with the possibility of its existence, he decided that he found it more of a bother than a revelation.   
  
He had to find a way to dispose of Hakkai; so far that task had proven impossible to accomplish with beating, shooting, or burning, and by God would not involve ... doing _that_ with him. Sanford was flummoxed if he could see a way. Perhaps the Bishop would hold the answer — blasted flighty and unresponsive fellow he might be.  
  
***  
  
There was a pony-cart in the rectory drive when Sanford pulled up. It proved to have contained George, who was home a day early and was just waving goodbye to the driver. Sanford breathed a sigh of relief that he was to have assistance at last.   
  
"About time you returned, Mr. Sunworthy, for I have need of you," Sanford said in greeting as he hopped down from his own conveyance. He brushed dust from his coat and opened the door of the buggy to wave Kammy and Haze out with hurried motions. "Give these horses some water and ... whatever else it is they need, for I shall be leaving again soon. Then come and find me, for I've something to show you. You two, follow me. Move!"  
  
"Good afternoon to you as well, Mr. Sanford," George said, rolling his eyes to the heavens. Irrepressibly good-natured, however, he didn't hold the attitude for long but set about doing as he was bidden, taking the reins from Sanford and cooing to the horses. He briefly greeted Kammy and Haze with raised eyebrows but no comment upon their bonds.  
  
Just then, the front door of the rectory slammed open.  
  
"George!" Lily, carrying a dusting cloth, began to fly down the steps, but catching sight of Sanford, halted and grinned. "I mean, Mr. Sunworthy. Welcome back!"   
  
George matched her smile and they walked to meet each other with bouncing gaits. Both of them were nearly the same height and build, and had more energy than was good for them, ruminated Sanford, who fixed a steely gaze on Lily.  
  
"You've said hello. Now go home," Sanford told her as he shooed the young men into the house.  
  
She began to stick her tongue out at him but seemed to restrain herself with some effort. "Of course, Mr. Sanford," she said. She looked back at George with a return of her sunny grin. She didn't even spare a glance for Sanford's companions, the miscreants she'd ratted out to him earlier. "Your cousin Nate is well, I hope?"  
  
"Very well, thank ya, when I left 'im," George said, staring at her stupidly and no longer doing a single thing that Sanford had asked of him.  
  
"This instant, Lily," Sanford called out the door. "Go!"  
  
"Oh, pooh," Lily said.  
  
"I'll call on ya later, Miss Nils," George said with another insouciant eye-roll.  
  
"You shall do no such thing," Sanford said, an empty threat to be sure since he would soon be gone. However, he wanted to make his mood and desires as clear as possible.  
  
It was a code that George understood all too well. He waved goodbye to Lily and went back to caring for the horses.  
  
Sanford untied the two men and pushed them into the front parlor with an admonition to keep their hands off each other, be the touches tender or otherwise, and stomped upstairs to pack a few necessary items. He had a short moment of vexation when he realized he'd made no such arrangements for his passengers, but then shook it off with a decision to let the Bishop handle those matters. Bishop Coombe had the money, and he'd been more than useless so far, damn it all.  
  
George met him coming down the stairs. Sanford noted that he looked well; his chestnut hair was tousled and his russet trousers somewhat dusty, but otherwise he showed no signs of the road fatigue he, Sanford, would surely soon experience. George's large brown eyes were fixed inquisitively upon him. "What's afoot, Sanford?" he asked.  
  
"A pain you can't imagine," Sanford said, shaking his head, for he hardly knew where to start. He drew George to the cellar door and, in a low voice, told him very briefly about the traveling preacher and, in more detail, about the unfortunate fate of Lady Kanzefour's rare Oriental tomes. George gasped, knowing the depth of Sanford's affection for the written word and sharing in a part of it himself.   
  
Of Hakkai, Sanford would only say that he himself was currently in possession of a being with unnatural abilities, one whom George would soon meet and be given the charge of. He sketched out the circumstances surrounding the two men in his parlor and warned, "I shan't be gone long, but be wary you are not beguiled, or I will make you sorry you were ever born, George Sunworthy."  
  
"I'm sure I hope I won't be," George breathed with raised eyebrows.  
  
Only somewhat satisfied, Sanford unlatched the door and led the way down. Again he was surprised to come upon Hakkai reading and showing perhaps a touch of ennui but no discomfort or dishevelment. Even in a prim attitude of study he looked ... enticing, like a thing one might wish to touch or examine in manners both scientific and not, to see if he were as warm and sinuous as he appeared.  
  
Sanford forced himself to perform the social niceties. "George, this is Hakkai, third-level youkai in the court of Zakuro the Salacious, whatever the blazing hell that is. Hakkai, this is George Sunworthy, my curate, and you will not touch him, by God."  
  
"Nice to meet ya," George said in a voice full of wonder as he beheld Hakkai. "'Huh, what an interesting-lookin' fella you are."   
  
"I'm very obliged," Hakkai said, with a tiny nod.  
  
George stared a moment longer, then shook his head and turned his gaze to Sanford. "I gotta tell ya, Sanford. I'm not feeling the least beguiled by 'im."  
  
Sanford felt heat suffuse his cheeks. "Just as well, idiot," he said.   
  
He wished he could admit to the same. The low-level pulsation in his belly and the heat in his limbs that had been his companions for days were intensified in Hakkai's presence. Much longer in such company and Sanford would feel a need to adjust his trousers and perhaps seek other ways to relieve his discomfort.   
  
And then he would have to shoot something. Seven hells, but Sanford hated this unaccustomed feeling, of being unable to master his own body, to school his baser urges.  
  
He became aware that Hakkai was staring at him.  
  
"Do not examine me so," Sanford said.  
  
"I have noted a particular allegation — er, agitation? — in you this day, Reverend. My nature is to do so, as we have discussed." Again Hakkai made a gesture that seemed begun and quickly aborted, as if he were about to press his fingers to the bridge of his nose. The gesture looked familiar, though Sanford could not immediately place it.  
  
"Stow it," he gritted out.  
  
"But I have missed our brief talks and feel that you have questions for me, sir," Hakkai said in an even tone.   
  
Indeed Sanford had many questions. So did George, it seemed, for he was glancing between them with widened eyes. Sanford cleared his throat and willed his flush to dissipate.   
  
"It is more of an order," Sanford said. "Stop whatever evil you are perpetrating upon my parishioners. Bad enough you are here, but now I am forced to undertake an errand I abhor to remedy the effects of your presence."  
  
"I do nothing that is not inherent to me, I assure you," Hakkai said, shaking his head. "And it was not by my will that I was summoned."  
  
"He has a point," George said.   
  
"Be that as it may," Sanford said, ignoring George. "Your days in my home are numbered."  
  
"Have you conceded to my proposition, then, Reverend?" Hakkai said, and by God, he licked his lips, his tongue setting them ashine with deliberate insinuation.  
  
"What proposition is that?" asked George.  
  
Sanford would not illuminate him. "Never you mind," he said. "Suffice to say, it shall not be met. I am to Town, with hopes of fetching the blasted Bishop. Do not move these books from the circular pattern you see here."  
  
Hakkai coughed, gently. "Might I beg some additional reading material of you? As fascinating and new to me as your holy texts are, I would like to see what other literature your library has to offer. In my remaining numbered days here."  
  
George shrugged. "I can't see that it'll hurt? Maybe it'll keep 'im occupied till you return."  
  
Sanford threw up his hands. "Very well. You may have the collected works of Shakespeare, or something."  
  
"Ah ha ha," Hakkai interjected. "Your pardon, but I've already read those."  
  
"You'll read what George brings you and like it," Sanford cried and turned to ascend the steps. By God, he needed a smoke, and would have one before he left, see if he didn't.  
  
***  
  
It was nearing dusk when Sanford finally reached India Street; London was not too far distant from his home, but he'd only the two nags to pull the three of them, and he'd no wish to wear out My Lady's horseflesh and endure her subsequent ire.  
  
The shadows stretched long upon the street and the failing sunlight illumined the grime and smoke of the capital. Lord, but Sanford hated London. His mood was not improved when he discovered that the Bishop was not at home.  
  
"He is doing good works on a Church-sanctified errand in the north," offered Mr. Corey, the elderly clerk who'd received him.  
  
"May the hounds of Hell gnaw at his heels," Sanford spat, and Corey pressed a hand to his own chest.  
  
"Language, Mr. Sanford!" he cried in breathless tones.  
  
"Pardon," Sanford mumbled, lost in thought. For there, Sanford's sound but hastily devised plans were exploded. Another plan must be concocted just as quickly, for Sanford's limbs ached for a soft chair and a smoke. The horses as well would have to be properly rested.  
  
Sanford knew himself irascible and at times incapable of the patience required of a man of the cloth, but he also understood his duty to those in his care. He took a deep, bracing, calming breath.  
  
"Send someone out to care for these horses and stable them. If you please," Sanford said. "And make arrangements to house two young men — in separate bedchambers, mind — whom I have brought with me."  
  
"But Mr. Sanford!" Corey said.  
  
"I can see there are servants," Sanford pointed out. "And if Bishop Coombe is out, then there is room, is there not?"  
  
Sanford was known to Corey as one of the Bishop's protégés. And despite Sanford's relative youth and lowly comparative status to Corey's master, Corey bowed to the authority and fractious demand in Sanford's tone.  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
Sanford roused Kammy and Haze, slumped quite noticeably apart in the confines of the buggy, and directed them inside. A pair of stable boys appeared from the back to take the horses, and a pair of women, one young and one old and both in mobcaps, materialized to take charge of his passengers.  
  
Sanford brushed aside the offer of late supper and found the kitchen, where he ate a hunk of cheese and some bread to stave off the even fouler and quite horrifying temper he knew accompanied a lack of food in himself. And thus fortified he could make and execute plans to discharge at least one of his duties.  
  
The Church, as represented by Bishop Coombe's household, was to find speedy employment for the young men or, barring that, provide them with clothes and the means to fend for themselves for a short period of time.  
  
"The Bishop can foot the bill, or have him see me at St. Thomas. I have urgent need of him regardless," Sanford said to the astounded Mr. Corey. "I shall make my own arrangements this eve."  
  
Kammy and Haze seemed just as relieved to be rid of him as he of them, though they both tugged at their forelocks and offered thanks for their deliverances.   
  
This business executed, Sanford set out on foot to find an obliging inn where he could smoke and drink to his heart's content, and think as he did so on what to do next. The first inn Sanford found had no rooms, but it had ale, so Sanford drank a pint, then another, to clear his head and settle his loins.  
  
What to do? The social harmony of his parish as well as the order of his own flesh and life depended on his finding an answer. He was almost tempted to pray that a solution or guidance would present itself out of thin air, like the voice from Moses's burning bush or Isaiah receiving his vision of the Lord's house. But no, it seemed the sole mystical vision of his twenty-eight years thus far, and perhaps for the rest of them, was to have been the appearance of a glorious naked man writhing in a twist of ash and vines in an English field.   
  
His loins thus unsettled once more, Sanford followed the innkeeper's directions to another public house that might oblige him with a room for the night.   
  
London after sunset was just as malodorous and grimy as it was by day, with the added detraction of having drunks, whores, and cutthroats lurking in the unsavory dark spaces between buildings. Sanford carried a pistol in his bag but rather would not have used it and trusted that a parson wearing a sour expression would keep footpads at a distance.  
  
As he walked, the sharp trill of a woman's scream, or perhaps laugh, caught his attention. He peered down an alley to verify the source of the noise and saw something odd: a lantern illuminating a vine-decorated sign hanging above a doorway. The sign read "Chinese Heeling, Lowndry, & Mystical etc."  
  
"Mystical what?" Sanford wondered aloud, and a tiny hope rose in his breast that here was his vision, even unprayed-for. But as visions went it was sadly lacking, for in addition to the misspellings, the doorway was darkened and also blocked by a pile of snoring cloth, like a drunkard or beggar had settled there for the night. Sanford might still have investigated further, but his belly gave a sudden wrench; it felt as if the tremblings of his body had cracked a vial of liquid fire that sped through his blood to infect his limbs with a powerful and debilitating desire.  
  
Lust: it was the foul affliction of the human condition, as demanding as one's other basic needs but most troublesome in its satisfaction. How annoying it was that even so far from his home and the immediate sphere of Hakkai's influence, he should feel this damned burn. It was a burn that only the cool, green touch of soft leaves and curling tendrils caressing his skin could cool—  
  
No, it was ale. More ale would be the way to kill it. Sanford took great, heaving lungsful of air and tried not to stagger to the inn. Thankfully he found it quickly, and even more thankfully, they had an unoccupied room. First, however, Sanford settled himself in the taproom, hunched over a table like Methuselah. There he downed a brace of ales, enough to subdue his good judgment but making only the scantiest impression upon the ardor of his flesh.   
  
He stumbled upstairs to a thankfully unoccupied room, undressed, and lay atop the sheets clad only in his barest smallclothes. He wished for more cool air and less noise to blow in through the open window.  
  
"Fuck off," he yelled to the rowdy revelers in the street below, who either did not hear him or did not care.   
  
_Thing was, it was the doctor. Preacher, rather. It was his fault, not Hakkai's, not really. Truth be told, Hakkai was not an unlikable fellow. Thing._ So Sanford's whirling thoughts informed him. Except for Hakkai's habit of prurience where Sanford was concerned, his personality seemed more tolerable and reasonable than that of most people of Sanford's acquaintance.   
  
His nature was no more his own doing than Sanford's was his, as nat— natural as breathing. He thought of breathing, of soft breaths, those that grew in harshness as the forbidden was indulged, as nothing less holy or more earthy than base flesh was allowed to meet, caress ...  
  
To exercise one's lust upon oneself was perhaps not quite sanctified, but Sanford thought it better than the consequences of adultery. Pity he could no more impress that upon his congregation than he could resist his own touch, resist the images that came to mind as he stroked his hot flesh.  
  
The world outside would no more hear his soft moans than they'd heard his curses, as Sanford imagined tattoo-rimmed eyes watching his, a soft mouth with lips that smiled easily set upon his prick.  
  
He reached his completion in a haze of sweat and swirling thoughts, and was far enough soused and satiated that he did not even arise to clear the evidence but fell almost instantly into slumber.  
  
***  
  
Sanford awoke early, with a thick head that pounded relentlessly.   
  
He bathed his face with cold water from a basin near the window, but the ache in his brain-box did not ease; the timid knock from a chambermaid or some such only exacerbated it, and he cried out for the knocker to "cease that racket this instant!"  
  
Quickly he washed the rest of himself, which was dusty and sticky from his travels and a night spent as if in a fever, and dressed in clean but wrinkled clothing. If nothing else, his pounding head distracted him from the barely satiated ache in his nether regions.  
  
Downstairs he asked for tepid tea. It did not help much, with either his aching head or his temper. He'd come all this way and suffered so much, for nearly naught.  
  
Of course, his duty to extricate the young sodomites from the perils of his parish had been completed; there was that. And his foggy brain seemed to recall a shop of some sort ... had it been in his fever-dreams that he'd seen the vines upon its hanging sign? Certainly not, he decided, for his subconscious mind would never have perpetrated such egregious misspellings upon the world.   
  
That meant it was real and that he should find it. It could not be far; were even such an errand to prove useless, it would not long delay his return home. He longed for his own bed, his own chair under the alder. He had a sermon to write, as well, and lustful thoughts aplenty to populate it.   
  
He spared a thought for George and how he'd fared during his first night in the vicinity of a sex youkai; strangely, Sanford found he was not overworried on that account. George was quite capable and levelheaded when he needed to be, and it had only been the one evening. Sanford could set out with a clear conscience in that regard, at least.  
  
It was sunny outside when he left the inn, a rare bright, cheerful day. Even Sanford's ugly black felt hat could not shield his aching eyes from the blasted sun's penetrating rays, for his path led him east.  
  
He retraced his steps and found the alley, which was thankfully bathed in shadow. Thankful also was he that the door was unblocked and the shop appeared to be open. Sanford was almost prepared for the flush of heat he felt at the sight of the vines upon the sign, but upon crossing the shop's threshold, he experienced a feeling not unlike being doused with cold water, unseen; the odd sensation dissipated the burn of his body in an instant, leaving him whole and feeling almost normal. Then he had only his sore head to vex him, and an annoying sense of curiosity at facing humors that could wreak or remove havoc at will.  
  
Inside the shop was disappointingly unprepossessing. It was dark and poky and smelled of dirty laundry, lye, and strange herbs. He stared about him; the walls were covered in dusty books and scrolls bearing spines and labels written in indecipherable letters.  
  
"Oi! Guv. That your laundry in the bag?" a voice called from behind him. Sanford turned to see a man, an Easterner by the shape of his features. But this one sported a shocking amount of bright red hair, as red as Mrs. Howmaugh's unnatural lips. The man was standing behind a greasy counter and directing an insouciant eye at Sanford.  
  
Sanford stared at the spectacle the man presented, then shook his head. "Mystical what?" he asked.  
  
"Wot?" the man said, squinting at him.  
  
"The sign, fool. It says, quite badly, "Healing, Laundry and Mystical. Et cetera.""  
  
"Ah. Well, that's an interestin’ thing," the man said, his accent more Cheapside than China. "And a simple 'un. I'm the laundry, my wife’s the healing, and we're both Chinese and mystical. Good enough for ya?"  
  
"I suppose," Sanford said, unable to help the curl in his lip at such peculiar treatment — nay, at the entire bizarre spectacle. He'd had bizarre spectacles a-plenty this week, to be sure.   
  
At least the man's white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, was clean, attesting to the efficacy of his laundry-work if nothing else. And he supposed the man could have been called well-looking were it not for his fiery mop of hair.   
  
"You gonna feast your peepers on me, Parson, or give me your bag, or what?" the man said, leaning forward on his elbows.  
  
"My time here is wasted," Sanford said, letting his sneer enter his speech. He cared not to be at the mercy of such a person, mystical havoc or no. He was turning to leave when a cool female voice halted him.  
  
"I can assist you with your aching head, sir," it said.  
  
The voice proved to belong to a beautiful woman who had appeared behind the counter next to the carroty-pated Chinaman. She wore a printed green silk robe and had unbound black hair that swung to her waist. Her eyes showed kindness and pity, and Sanford found himself forestalling his escape.  
  
"I'd be obliged, madam," he said, much to his own surprise.  
  
She said something Sanford did not understand to the man, who threw up his hands and barked a nasally "Aaaaaah!" The man then set his hands upon his hips and regarded Sanford with wide eyes, as if evaluating him anew.  
  
"What was that?" Sanford said. He cared not that it was rude, for they had discussed him impertinently before his very eyes.  
  
"I said, it's obvious you are not here for laundry," the woman told him. She was measuring white powder from a slender jar onto a paper-lined scale. She nudged a few final, recalcitrant grains of the powder onto the paper with a small, curved knife, then nodded and set her jar of powder aside.  
  
"Told ya we were mystical," the man said. He filled a tin cup with water from an ewer and set the cup on the counter. His lips formed the shape of a smirk as he regarded Sanford. "Two pennies."  
  
"Robbery," complained Sanford, who nonetheless paid it. The woman stirred the powder into the cup and offered it to him.  
  
He took up the cup and tried to inhale its scent without being conspicuous. It smelled of lemon. It appeared safe; moreover, he felt it to be safe, instinctually. And his instincts, along with empirical evidence, had served him better throughout his life than faith in supernatural reward or retribution for sinners who would poison a clergyman. He drank it.  
  
It did not banish his pain immediately, though the lemon flavor went a good way towards freshening his palate and clearing his head. "Better," he said.  
  
"Hope it improves yer mood, Parson, 'cause this story should be a good 'un," the man said.  
  
Sanford stiffened his spine and clenched his fingers into fists. "How are you to know, idiot, that my business here is not concluded?"  
  
The woman shot her husband a look of reproach and stepped in front of him, effectively separating the two men. "You have a sense about you, that is all," she said.  
  
"And English gospel-merchants don't usually come here, neither," the man put in from over her shoulder.  
  
Sanford ignored him and considered his situation. To put his issue before such as this man was irritating beyond reason, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that he could soon leave, never to return nor to see these people again. He'd come here hoping for a sign, for answers; to leave with naught would be disheartening. He took a calming breath, then spoke.  
  
"Then listen and do not interrupt," he said. "I seek information about a ... a being. Appearing Eastern in origin but claiming to be otherworldly, and purporting to have been summoned by calling and the burning of certain books. It bears" — _beautiful_ , he did not say — "skin markings like those vines drawn poorly on your misspelled sign. It ... ah," — _reads voraciously and speaks quite intelligently_ — "craves flesh."  
  
The woman regarded him with wide and alarmed eyes. "It eats people?"  
  
"Ah, no," Sanford said. He felt foolish in the extreme. "It craves flesh in a ... licentious manner. And I wish it gone." _For it fills my thoughts and body with feelings that are impure and unceasing._  
  
"Ahhh," both his listeners intoned as one, nodding as if in sudden understanding. They exchanged a glance between them, and then the woman stepped out from behind the counter and brushed past Sanford, directing her steps towards the wall of books behind him. She tapped her chin with a long, curved, and painted fingernail as she examined the dusty library. Of a sudden she chose a tome and plucked it from the wall.  
  
This she placed on the counter and then licked a finger to peruse its contents. At last she settled on an engraving set into the book.  
  
"Is this it?" she said.  
  
Sanford leaned over to examine the page. It showed a misshapen and horned creature; it had markings on its skin, it was true, but they appeared to be depictions of thorns or flames. This foul creature sported bulging eyes, a dripping, forked tongue, and an enormous, rampant prick.   
  
"No, decidedly not," cried Sanford.  
  
The woman sighed and shook her head. "That is a shame, for those are quite simple to banish. All that’s required is a little ash of rosemary, burned during the second full moon of the new year."  
  
"Ah," said Sanford. "This one claims" — _quite politely_ — "that sexual congress is required to return him to the evil realm from which he hails."  
  
"Oh," the woman said, her mouth round with what might have been surprise.  
  
"Listen, guv," the man spoke up. He bent an elbow upon the counter and placed his chin in his hand, regarding Sanford from this casual position. "I've heard 'a such a cove. I think. Here an' there. But it's not the usual _gui_. Far as I know, someone will just haveta fuck it. Enjoy, my good man."  
  
Sanford resisted the urge to box the man's nose and looked at the woman.  
  
She simply nodded. "Tis true. Fuck it."  
  
Sanford _tch_ ed and threw up his palms. "Perhaps I shall bring it here for you, then, and you can do with it what you will."  
  
"Not a chance. We 'ave wards to keep that sort out," the man said with a white-toothed grin.  
  
Wards. Well, in an insane world where such supernatural fancies were true, that would have provided an explanation for the relief Sanford had felt upon entering the shop. He looked at the woman once more, unable to bear the man's leering presence. "Can you provide me with similar wards?"  
  
"No, they are bound to this place. But I could sell you some of the ash of rosemary at a very reasonable price. I always make sure to burn plenty when the time is right."  
  
Sanford sighed. "How much?" he asked.  
  
***  
  
Not long after his adventure in the mystical laundry, Sanford collected his borrowed rig and horses from the Bishop's house — Bishop Coombe had still neither returned nor sent a reply — and drove home. He did this minus two passengers but carrying one small bottle of ash of rosemary, guaranteed to have been burned at the second full moon of the new year.  
  
He also carried with him a longing to be home and a desire to — to see Hakkai again. To thrash him, of course, for all the trouble he'd caused, even if unwittingly. What a world he, Sanford, had been thrown into!  
  
The weather remained exceedingly fine, and while Sanford may not have been in a temper to enjoy it, he at least had an aching head no longer. He dropped off the equipage at My Lady's stables and walked the short distance home, glad of a chance to stretch his legs.  
  
He opened his own doorway at last and dropped his bag upon the floor. He was about to call for George when he heard muted laughter from the parlor. That laughter had come from the throat of not one, but at least two men—  
  
Quickly he threw open the parlor door and was struck to see George and Hakkai — fully clothed — having tea.  
  
"What in the damnation of all that is holy are you doing?"  
  
The two culprits exchanged a startled glance, as if wondering to which "you" Sanford was referring. George rose hurriedly and stood before Hakkai, thrusting out his arms and shielding him from Sanford's murderous ire.  
  
"Your pardon, Sanford! Don't shoot. I released him from the circle and allowed him upstairs 'cause he's promised upon a stack of Bibles not to harm anyone or escape, and I believe 'im."  
  
Sanford listened to this stunning speech with the barest thread of patience. "How can I shoot anyone when I haven't my fucking rifle to hand? I shall find it this instant."  
  
"No, I beg of you. 'Tis my fault," George cried, his eyes as wide and innocent as he could make them, and that was exceptionally wide. "I accept responsibility for any consequences, though I don't really think there'll be any 'cause he's a very good sort. For hellspawn, that is. An' it was just Christian charity to let him out!"  
  
Sanford took a breath to dispel his immediate panic. As his house was still standing, George appeared unhurt, and the villagers weren't copulating in his drive, it seemed no visible harm had yet occurred as a result of George's actions. He crossed his arms to disguise the twitching in his fingers.  
  
"Does not the Bible tell us that the lord of Hell himself is a fallen angel and thus fair, and also that he is a deceiver, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience?" Sanford said.  
  
George, flippant soul that he was, only snorted. "Said the non-believer to the believer."  
  
"Mind your tongue, brat," Sanford said. It was true; George owned more faith than he. Suddenly, he remembered his bag. "I shall be a moment. Pour me some of that tea, and we may all discuss your flouting of my orders. Now."  
  
"May I pour? For practice?" Hakkai spoke, for the first time since Sanford had returned.  
  
Sanford grunted his indifferent acquiescence and walked out. He dug in his bag and returned to the parlor. George was directing Hakkai to add only milk, for Sanford took no sugar with his tea, when Sanford opened the bottle of burned rosemary over Hakkai's head and shook out a few ashes upon his black hair. Nothing happened, except Hakkai sniffed and appeared to hold back a sneeze.  
  
"An herb, I believe?" he said, sniffing twice, three times. "My pardon — did my smell offend? I usually try to be quite fatuous — er, fastidious, I assure you."  
  
"No. An experiment only. God-dammit," Sanford said on a long sigh. He threw himself into a chair, and regarded the pair of them over a cup of tea.  
  
Being fully clad in English kit did not alter Hakkai's otherworldly appearance in the slightest. As rustic as his shirt and trousers were, they could not hide the litheness of his limbs or the sinuous elegance of his movements. And as for his delicately tattooed facial features —  
  
Sanford became aware that Hakkai was staring back at him, his lips in a straight line that belied the rapt interest in his expression. Sanford felt his face heat and he cleared his throat.  
  
George and he began speaking at the same time.   
  
"We were talkin' about far-eastern tea, which it seems is often green—" George began.  
  
"I recall that you said you did not require food or drink," Sanford said.  
  
"Ah ha ha. 'Tis true," Hakkai said in a low voice. "But that does not mean that I am unwilling to sample the delicacies of whatever place I am called to. There are many pleasures in your world."  
  
At such innuendo, Sanford felt the flush in his face descend to his chest and travel throughout his limbs so that even his fingertips felt overwarm. He glanced at George, who sipped his tea and showed no sign that he was reading the undercurrents of the conversation.  
  
"How the hell did you acquire those clothes? They are neither yours nor mine," Sanford asked him.  
  
"Mrs. Saunders brought 'em. No, she did not lay eyes on Hakkai," George said at Sanford's sudden, intent glare. "She donated Kammy's clothing to the poor-box. She sends her thanks and hopes you told him to write."  
  
"I had time to do no such thing," Sanford said into his tea.  
  
"Mr. Sanford — for Mr. Sunworthy has informed me that I should not call you 'Reverend' — we discussed the deeds of your people and their consequences last eve," Hakkai said. "For which I wish I could apologize, but I cannot. I do nothing consciously, and effect nothing unconsciously, which does not already have an inclination. Still, as a man of your God, it seems you are quite forgiving. Is it the fashion of everyone in your profession to do such kind deeds?"  
  
Sanford simply stared. He wasn't sure that anyone had ever called him forgiving and kind before. George stared as well, then laughed.   
  
"Sanford is a fine bloke, under all his bluster. It's not only with his rifle that he earns the respect of the parish."  
  
"Do not discuss me so or I will bluster your head!" Sanford said.   
  
“I can well believe it,” Hakkai said. Once more, he made the gesture of placing his fingertip upon the bridge of his nose.  
  
“Are you accustomed to wearing spectacles?” Sanford asked, having at last placed the familiarity of the gesture.  
  
“Ah, not that I recall,” Hakkai said, his eyebrows drawing down. He glanced at his finger, then replaced his hand upon his thigh. “This is a habit I’ve but recently required — acquired, I believe.”  
  
“And you have no knowledge of who called you here?” Sanford asked, following a line of instinctual thought.  
  
“None. And I do not lie,” Hakkai said. If he was curious as to the direction the questions had taken, he did not show it.  
  
“Hmm,” Sanford said. He rose, though he was suddenly weary. “I’m for a smoke and a rest. Now you’re out, I don’t suppose it would be worth my trouble to put you back. But I expect not to be roused by any disturbances.”  
  
“Lord, no,” George said with a shudder. “Oh, Sanford, I nearly forgot. I wasn’t sure when ya would return, so I ordered dinner to be delivered from the Bull and Vixen. I ordered, er, a lot.”  
  
George’s appetite was legendary. But Sanford had a shudder of his own. “Howmaugh isn’t cooking it himself, is he? Or has his errant wife returned to him?”   
  
“Um, no. Actually, Mrs. Saunders has moved in temporarily. To console—I mean, cook for him.”  
  
“Either could be termed correct, I don’t doubt,” Sanford said. It seemed George had picked up Hakkai’s habit of uttering malapropisms. Sanford eyed him carefully; if George was feeling any of the same effects as Sanford was, he was hiding it well.   
  
_Effect nothing unconsciously, which does not already have an inclination_ , Hakkai had said. Did that mean that Sanford’s lust was intrinsic to himself? Hakkai had also said he did not lie. Sanford found himself hoping that Hakkai was lying about both things, for then he could stop gaining admiration for him and despise him with impunity.  
  
And speaking of lust. Sanford shook his head. “I won’t have time for dinner. I have a sermon to write as well.”  
  
“Oh, I already did that, too,” George said. “It’s about Christian charity and forgiving one’s neighbors' trespasses. It’s on your desk.”  
  
“I read it. It’s eloquent yet simple, written with great skill,” Hakkai said. George beamed at him.  
  
George was an excellent writer, it was true. Sanford frowned. “We will see about that,” he said, and stomped off to have a smoke.  
  
***  
  
Sanford did dine with George and Hakkai, and thankfully, Mrs. Saunders was a better cook than her — temporary —partner. The roast and potatoes and ragout and summer cherry tart were tasty enough to tempt even Sanford’s usually spare appetite.  
  
Hakkai, too, sampled each dish with apparent pleasure. Sanford glanced his way now and then, watching him as if unable to help himself. He was also unable to avoid remembering his fever-dream — no, it had been an impure fantasy, dammit. Sanford could only lie to himself for so long.   
  
He poured the rectory wine freely, forgetting or ignoring the lessons of the previous evening, namely that alcohol would not lessen the effects of such fantasies on his loins. The conversation more than the wine served as a distraction from said loins: the three of them had a heated discussion on the works of John Locke versus Thomas Jefferson. The former called for an undebated acceptance of God, which would theoretically allow for unobstructed further investigation into the workings of the world, a view which George was inclined to share. Sanford leaned more toward Jefferson, his rebellious yahoo tendencies aside. He'd written the _Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth,_ a miracle-free, rationalist version of the New Testament seen as a blasphemy by many but hailed as a boon for secular morals among the more scientific crowd. Hakkai was content to debate for either side of the issue.  
  
At one point Sanford had drunk enough wine that he admitted to having visited the establishment of Ampersand Mystical Et Cetera in a search for Hakkai’s origins and possible methods of conveying him thence. He did not reveal any of the lustful effects on his person nor discuss the supposed wards which had banished them. He did tell them of the monstrous being in the engraving.  
  
“I have met such a being,” Hakkai told them. There was a glint of humor in his eyes as he glanced at Sanford. “Those kind are older than I. Around the time of my … change in status and a reorganization of our order, that kind were, ah, resigned? No, retired.”  
  
“You mentioned such at our second meeting but did not elaborate,” Sanford said. “Will you divulge what happened, that it might aid my investigations?”  
  
“Ah. I suppose I could,” Hakkai said. He folded his long fingers together and placed his hands up on the table; small tendrils of vine writhed and crawled slowly over his skin, as if betraying a slight agitation. “I, like the Lucifer of your holy book, was on the wrong side of the — ah — reorganization I mentioned. You might call it a coup? Regardless, I objected to the treatment of ... one of my kind and began a battle for separation from our ruling circle. Others with more power than I disagreed, and I was placed under The Great Salacious One — to keep me out of trouble, I gather.”  
  
“Shuffled you off and buried you in new work?” George asked around a mouthful of roast.  
  
“Very perspir — er, perspicacious! I must say, they were quite lenient overall, considering the extent of the damage I caused. And I am learning to admire my adopted calling. My kind is very adaptable.”  
  
Sanford _hmph_ ed. “You adapt too well. But your environment does not adapt to you; thus, you must get thee gone, and bloody soon. Nothing you have told me helps with that, either.”  
  
“And these mystical Chinese persons? What was their prescription to you?” Hakkai said, with a slow blink.  
  
Sanford narrowly avoided choking on a mouthful of wine. He took care to swallow it before speaking. “Unfortunately, naught but a failed remedy and no new light shed upon the situation. I offered to haul you to them, but they declined.”  
  
“Can’t you just find someone to … do what is necessary to send you home?” George had to know, though he blushed as he spoke.  
  
“I have made overtures,” Hakkai said. The tattoos around his eyes shifted, making minute changes in the decoration of his face; perhaps also a sign of emotional flux? "And I was summarily declined."  
  
"By who?" George cried, and then said "oh," as he perhaps noted the way Sanford shifted in his chair. The flush upon his cheeks turned quite fiery as he digested these implications. Then, being George and thus inclined to accept the world as presented to him, he shrugged. "Well, people 'round here do seem to think him an Adonis or some such. It's that yaller hair and those purple eyes of his."  
  
"God-dammit. I have told you—" Sanford began to splutter, but George waved his hands and frowned.  
  
"No, never mind — there I go, ruinin' an interesting conversation."  
  
"It was not so," Sanford groused.  
  
"That depends on what one finds interesting," Hakkai said with a narrowed gaze, looking between them. "I find you both fascinating."  
  
"The feeling is not mutual," Sanford said. He stood; his legs were somewhat unsteady. "And I demand that you find no-one here fascinating if you know what is good for you."  
  
With that he walked out for a last smoke and then went to bed. George had been heading to his own chambers by the time Sanford had come back, having placed Hakkai in the library to be "surrounded by books," as he'd pointed out.  
  
All seemed as well as it could be. Still, Sanford could not fall asleep. For the second — or third, or perhaps fourth? — night in a row, he lay atop his sheets, bathed in sweat even though the room was pleasantly cool.   
  
Every inch of his skin pulsed with the blood that flowed through it, and every brush of air upon his flesh was like the barest promise of a caress. His cock had long since made its presence known, in such an erect state and aching so much that Sanford nearly pitied that monster in the book, forever cursed to arousal.  
  
He didn't take himself in hand, as it were, though he longed to, for he knew that Hakkai's clever green gaze would dominate his impure fantasies. So aggravated was he with his own misery that at first he did not hear the quiet footsteps that crossed the wooden floor of his room.   
  
But eventually he did hear them. He was upright and had his pistol cocked and pointed at Hakkai’s face even before Hakkai had fully sunk his weight upon the bed.  
  
“You know that will ultimately achieve nothing,” Hakkai said in a whisper. He was clad in Sanford's nightshirt and sat with his hands folded upon his thighs as if he were preparing to do nothing more than chat.  
  
“What do you want?” Sanford asked.   
  
“Why, you,” Hakkai replied, his sly-damn-him smile unaffected by the pistol merely an inch from it.  
  
"Get out of here."  
  
"Perhaps you don't wish me to leave your world after all?" Hakkai said. As if it were merely Sanford's disobliging nature trapping him here!   
  
And ... if it was — what then?  
  
"You are a cruel bastard," Sanford said, feeling weary.   
  
"I am indeed cruel. How else should I survive?" Hakkai murmured. Supple, slithering vines curled around Sanford's pistol and plucked it unfired from his grasp, then set it aside, out of reach. It had all been done rather gently; the moonlight revealed that Hakkai's calm expression did not change during this action, nor did it change as he leaned closer, watching Sanford. Waiting.  
  
Later Sanford could blame the wine or his frustration both emotional and physical, but whatever the case, he leaned forward and shoved his lips onto Hakkai's. Just for one taste did he do this.  
  
Hakkai's reaction was immediate, as if the move had come as no surprise; he grabbed the sides of Sanford's face and devoured his mouth with a single-mindedness that was terrifying. Sanford could not hold back a gasp at the touch, at the knowing slide of Hakkai's tongue inside his lips. His flesh cried out that yes, this touch only could ease the dreadful ache that had gripped his body and mind for days.  
  
He in turn clutched at Hakkai's shoulders, seeking a ground in his whirl of sensation and finding only warm skin that rippled sensuously under his fingers. He tried to pull his mouth away, but Hakkai only followed, a battle of wills that must be brief since Sanford would surely lose.  
  
Spiritual uncertainty be damned; this could not be but otherworldly, the way it drew desperate moans from his throat.  
  
"Yes, my lovely man," came Hakkai's words, whispered hotly against Sanford's jaw line. Sanford shivered with each one. "Give yourself over to me, and I shall show you my salvation."  
  
Sanford's next gasp was one of outrage, and though his flesh was weak, his mind was not, and it lent strength to his anger.   
  
"Damnation," he cried, and tore Hakkai's hands from his person and thrust him away with that newfound burst of strength. "I do not and have never _given_ myself to anyone, fool."  
  
Hakkai laughed, though his laugh was rather breathless. He drew back from the reach of Sanford's fists. "Do I take it that you are declining me once more?"  
  
"Yes, damn you. Declining and willing to test your powers of healing if you try to come closer again."  
  
Hakkai's brows drew down. "This waiting has been unaccustomed and sweet, and thus I can endure it for a very short while longer. But you really have no choice."  
  
"See if I don't," Sanford said, swinging another fist and glancing about for his pistol.  
  
Hakkai stood at that, however. He stepped backwards, watching Sanford as he did so. "You accepted me once. I pray you do so again, for only you will satisfy me, my dear Mr. Sanford."  
  
Then he left, and Sanford was alone, cursing him, cursing the air, cursing the beat of his own heart that sent such unsatisfied and constant longing racing throughout his body. He would endure another sleepless night, to be sure.  
  
***  
  
In the morning Sanford delivered an ad hoc and thunderous lecture to his congregation on the debilitations and necessary avoidance of lust. "For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace," he quoted from Romans; there were women weeping, and men weeping, for his congregation was all at sixes and sevens. Husbands and wives sat next to the husbands and wives of others, and maidens and bachelors wriggled in their pews.   
  
Dr. Nils alone sat smiling, his expression beatific, as if he were transported by Sanford's words.  
  
At the end, amidst the general shock and disconsolation he'd wrought, Sanford recalled George's carefully written sermon. He tried to focus his eyes upon the pages spread out on the pulpit. He read a quote from 1 John, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." It was a quote that was perhaps unwisely chosen, because after the hymns were concluded a great many people thronged him, begging for a private word.  
  
"I have done such wicked things with my husband and his brother these last few days. Am I going to hell?" one quivering and blushing matron wanted to know.  
  
"My impure thoughts about women burn at my very soul. Are they the flames of hellfire come for me? How may I be forgiven?" another person asked.  
  
"Kiss my hand, Mr. Sanford, do, or perhaps my face, or perhaps my body, for it is that which is filled with evil trespasses, and thus purify me," one young lady cried, and Sanford cried in return that he was no Pope in Rome to claim such powers.  
  
All of them he tried to console as best he could, but for a vicar of the Church of England, his personality was ill-equipped for consolation. That was what he had George for, but George was dealing with the collections and the poor-box and recording the names of the sick for later visitation.  
  
At last Sanford extricated himself from his lustful and needy flock and fled the short distance home, where he saw the door standing open and an unfamiliar vehicle and coachman in the drive. He rushed inside to see Bishop Coombe, being served tea by Hakkai and George.  
  
"Hullo, Gen! My, what a fascinating scenario you've found yourself in," the Bishop said.  
  
"I'm glad someone finds it so," Sanford replied with a frown, for seeing Hakkai again brought to mind touches both delicious and unresolved. Inside he sagged with relief, however, at this unhoped-for appearance from his mentor, his superior, his savior.  
  
Coombe merely smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners at even such a rude greeting. "As you see, I have met Hakkai, third-level youkai in the court of Somebody the Salacious, here."  
  
"Zakuro," George supplied.  
  
"Just so. And I saw a bit of your sermon, Gen, or should I call it a tirade? Whatever the case, I must comment on how forcefully you seemed to feel the spirit of Our Lord."  
  
"Oh, how I wish I had seen it," Hakkai murmured.  
  
"Indeed," Sanford said with a scowl in Hakkai's direction. He pulled down the hem of his jacket to compose himself, then directed his gaze back at Coombe. "Your Grace, I have urgent need of your counsel. Private counsel."  
  
"Oh! Of course." Coombe lowered his teacup into its saucer with a clink and stood, brushing at his black traveling-vestments. As if there were all the time in the world, he adjusted his black cap over his fair locks, worn in an old-fashioned queue down his back. At Sanford's even ruder snort of impatience, he rolled his eyes in a very un-bishop-like way, and nodded at Hakkai and George. "Pardon me, gentlemen!"  
  
"This way? Your Grace," Sanford ground out between gritted teeth, bowing and gesturing at the parlor door.  
  
"Yes, let us have a nice walk in your garden. The weather is so very fine! The skies over the moors were dreadfully grey, and I missed our good English summer. Do you have any of that American tobacco? And perhaps a pipe I could borrow?"  
  
"Yes, and yes," Sanford cried, murmuring _dammit_ under his breath and stomping into the hall to dig through his smoking-cabinet near the door. Pipes, matches, and a packet of Rolfe's Finest in hand, he urged Coombe outside.  
  
Once on the drive, the Bishop halted again to strike a match. "Ah! I've been dying for a smoke. So good to know you can always oblige," he murmured around the pipe-stem.  
  
Sanford _tch_ ed. "So what can you do?" he asked.  
  
"Why, about what?" Coombe said with a glance, eyes wide behind a cloud of smoke.  
  
"The heathen and demonic seducer lounging about my parlor with my young curate, of course," Sanford replied. In his frustration he kicked at the gravel of the drive, sending up puffs of dust, some of which settled on the hem of the Bishop's cloak.  
  
The Bishop glanced down at this, then up at Sanford. He quirked an eyebrow and handed over the pouch of tobacco. "Light yourself one first, Gen, so that we may speak when you have subdued your temper."  
  
"Yes, Your Grace," Sanford sighed. Perhaps he was behaving quite badly, but his temper had been sorely tried, in a manner Coombe could not possibly imagine. He lit his pipe and puffed, and yes, in but a few moments the smoke in his lungs and his blood settled his nerves enough to make him civil. "Your pardon," he said, bowing his head a fraction.  
  
"All is forgiven," Coombe said, commencing a leisurely stroll along the garden-path that led off the drive. He glanced about as he walked, at the green leaves of the trees, at the colors of the wildflowers George had seeded along the path. He closed his eyes with apparent delight at the smoke he inhaled.   
  
At one point he halted and looked at Sanford. "I have two new temporary footmen in my London household, it seems," he said. "While they may be unnecessary, I thank you for them regardless."  
  
Sanford nodded. "They are a product of this scenario, as you called it, or at least were apprehended in the throes of it. I have been hoping you would come, for my agitation has been near unendurable." Sanford ascertained what George or Hakkai had told Coombe, then related missing bits and pieces of the story. He left out his own encounter with Hakkai the previous evening but admitted to feeling the effects of his presence and, with heated cheeks, to Hakkai's professed preference for his company.  
  
It was likely that Coombe heard more in his words than what was said; for a man with a rather flighty demeanor, he was acutely canny when he wished to be. "This is indeed a disconcerting situation for you," he said.  
  
They had reached the shade of a rose-covered trellis, and they paused again beneath it. Sanford looked at Coombe. "Can you use your faith and knowledge of Scripture to banish him?"  
  
"An exorcism? Lord, no," Coombe said. "It seems even the followers of Confucius or Buddha have but one solution to his presence. Who am I, trained but in the path of Our God, to gainsay them?"  
  
Sanford _hmph_ ed. "They tell me someone has to fuck him."  
  
Coombe snorted, loosing a mouthful of smoke out his nose. "You always were very crude, Gen. But perhaps it is apt, given his crude nature. He does admire you, I think!"  
  
"I wish that he would not," Sanford said, crossing his arms across his chest.  
  
"Would you force another into your position?" Coombe asked, his gaze steady.  
  
"Yes!" Sanford said, then looked away from that piercing stare. "No."  
  
"You are not one to shirk your responsibilities," Coombe said with a gentle smile. "At least, the really important ones."  
  
Sanford paced a bit in a circle under the shade, searching his soul for the strength to say what must be said. "So you believe I should perform this duty? Should I not be damned by the Church and the law for such?"  
  
"We make many sacrifices for the Lord," Coombe said. "And there could be worse, I suppose."  
  
"You are no blasted help at all," Sanford spat. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the garden, the Bishop at his heels. He'd reached his limit; what little peace of mind he'd been left with these last few days vanished. His flesh demanded this resolution, the instincts upon which he relied told him that such was necessary, and even empirical evidence, namely his experiment kissing Hakkai, told him it was so by the overwhelming pleasure it had given him. And now his mentor, his friend, his last resort, was urging him in the direction of blasphemous and probably astonishing sexual congress.  
  
He returned to the front of the rectory and discovered that his limit had not yet indeed been reached, for what he found tested his soul even further.   
  
Lily was running up the drive, wailing, wearing a flimsy yellow gown, her red hair flying. George opened the door and spotted her.  
  
"Miss Nils! Oh, what's wrong?" he said.  
  
Lily ran up to the steps and caught her breath, watching George with tears trailing down her face. "Woe, Mr. Sunworthy. It’s truly unbearable. I am to have a brother or sister, for it turns out it was my naughty Papa who seduced Peg, and she's all increasing! An' the ol' bat he's taken up with is still there and will never leave. I cannot stand it! I cannot live there!"  
  
George made soft noises of distress and wiped at the tears on her cheek. “There, there. We'll see everything aright, just you wait." He glanced down at the rest of her. "I see you altered a gown to match the one in the magazine I had mailed from Paree. You look very fine!"  
  
Lily beamed. "Oh, George!" she cried, and threw her arms about his neck. In the more lurid type of novel, Sanford had read the term "heaving bosom," and now he saw this sort of bosom in action. George saw it, too, for his cheeks pinked and he placed his hands upon Lily's waist.  
  
"That's enough, enough!" Sanford yelled, striding up the drive to separate them. "Lily, your papa should be dealt with, but right now, by the devil, you cannot be here!"  
  
"Oh, not the Vicar," Lily pouted.  
  
At Sanford's approach George had released Lily as if she'd set his palms afire. "It's all right, Sanford. I haveta go on the rounds of the poor and sick. I'll have Lily come with me and help." He held up a hand as Sanford opened his mouth to object. "We'll have plenty of chaperones 'cause the sick ain't romantic. I promise."  
  
"Oh, get out and do it, then," Sanford said, stepping away and making shooing motions. He needed to end this farce, now, and having George around would not allow him to accomplish that end with even the shreds of his dignity.  
  
George reached inside and grabbed his bag of items to distribute to the poor, then grabbed Lily's elbow and shuffled them both off amidst her murmurs of "thank you so very much, George. I know about the sick, and I'll be such good 'elp to you!"  
  
"What an admirable young man you have there," Coombe said as the two young people trotted off.   
  
Sanford turned to look at him, having almost forgotten Coombe's presence. He sighed and puffed at the dregs of tobacco in his pipe. He blew out a sickly looking cloud of smoke. So weary was he with resignation that the corner of his lip may have quirked up as he replied.   
  
"True. But unless you've changed your mind about a damned exorcism, you might as well go home. I have duties to perform, you see."  
  
As he said the words his flesh ... bloomed, it felt; an infernal heat rose throughout him, and he shuddered from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes.   
  
Perhaps Coombe saw; perhaps he didn't. Regardless, he placed his hands together in an attitude of prayer and bowed. "Fare you well, then, and may the light of the Lord shine upon you."  
  
"It shines whether I want it to or not," Sanford mumbled as Coombe called his coachman over and directed him to ready the horses. Sanford flashed him a short wave and an even shorter bow.   
  
***  
  
Sanford watched the carriage until it was a dot upon the hill. Then he straightened his jacket one last time and looked at his own doorway. He sighed heavily and then opened it and stepped into the cool tile of the foyer.  
  
Hakkai's breath, Hakkai's voice brushed his ear from over his shoulder. "Have you come to do your duty, Mr. Sanford?" the voice and breath said.   
  
"I have," Sanford said.  
  
Suddenly Hakkai stood before him, smiling as if he were no vile, demonic seducer at all but merely a strangely tattooed man who was very pleased with himself. "I should be offended, I suppose, that you rejected me last eve. But I am rather detes— er, delighted, for despite what I said, I grow weary of waiting. And I do want you so very much."  
  
With that he stepped forward and set his hands upon Sanford's shoulders and his lips upon Sanford's lips. This kiss did not mirror their first the previous night, for it was gentle, reverent even. But quickly did it grow in intensity, for once Sanford had become resolved, he let his flesh burn uncontained and his hands roam freely over Hakkai's rough-shirted back.  
  
They kissed for long minutes there in the hall, their bodies swaying together so that Sanford was thrust against the door for balance. He lost his breath, he lost his memory, in the violent pleasure of the moment.  
  
Though not all his faculties went missing: Hakkai's hands, or perhaps other things, were pressing, gliding, under his jacket, under his shirt, stroking his bare skin. He moaned at such intimacy and was recalled to their location.  
  
"Not here," he managed to gasp.  
  
"Shall we re— repair to your chambers, then?" Hakkai said, his breathiness divulging his own state of excitement.  
  
"Please," Sanford said.   
  
They stumbled up the stairs, or at least they did in Sanford's case, to his bedchamber. Once there the hunger in Sanford's skin for touch was fed, sharpened, and fed again as Hakkai used all methods at his disposal — of which there were many, bless and damn him — to peel off Sanford's clothing as well as his own. He kissed Sanford's mouth, the join of his neck and shoulder, under his ear where the accelerated thump of Sanford's heart betrayed him.   
  
Sanford, in turn, let his hands explore the smooth, painted stretch of Hakkai's body, that lithe form he'd glimpsed too often for his own peace of mind. He discovered that Hakkai's prick, while as rampant as his own, was thankfully no larger than it should be. Not by much, at least.  
  
He inhaled Hakkai's scent; he smelled of tea, of books, of woodsy green things. Something rubbed along the tender inside of Sanford's thigh and his knees gave way. He lay upon the bed and Hakkai joined him there, examining each of the places he kissed and licked with narrow-gazed and obvious admiration. Like a wanton, Sanford arched from the bed to meet each heated, wet, and sucking touch.  
  
Sanford's other sexual experience, while pleasurable, had taken place in the dark amidst much fumbling and cursing. This experience in the bright light of day was a revelation of sorts. His fingers traced the path of one of Hakkai's heathen vine-drawings, from its origins near his belly to its twining curl at the end of one of his fingers.  
  
"Do all of your kind have these?" Sanford had to ask.  
  
Hakkai glanced up from where he was winding his tongue about one of the pink nubs on Sanford's chest. He smiled. "No, our gifts manifest themselves in myriad ways. Some have the power to generate flame, for example. Others can see into the depths of your thoughts."  
  
Sanford shivered at the very idea, or perhaps at the way Hakkai's thumb pressed into the vulnerable skin at his hip. "And yet you claim you are not a demon from the Hell of which I have read? Your descriptions of its workings seem revealingly — ah!— similar."  
  
"I am not, my dear sir," Hakkai said. He set his lips upon Sanford's breastbone and with his mouth began drawing a slick trail down over his trembling stomach. "And you are as fortunate as I, for my source and nature have granted me skill in my calling."  
  
At that pronouncement he demonstrated such by taking Sanford's cock into his mouth and caressing it with his breath and tongue, with devastating results. Devastating to Sanford's faculties, anyway, as he cried out and closed his eyes against the erotic assault on his most private person. He felt cool vines twining about his thighs, lifting him from the bed and opening him, holding him prisoner to the sucking mouth on his cock; it drew out shameful sounds from his own throat.   
  
He could not keep his gaze closed for long, however, and opened his eyes to watch the bizarre and yet erotic spectacle. His feverish skin recalled his own solitary fantasy and its accompanying passion, but the sight in reality, of Hakkai's mouth drawing up and down his swollen cock, overwhelmed his vision into shattered blurs of color, of pinks and blacks. The muscles in his belly drew taut as he sailed ever upwards towards inevitable release—  
  
And then he was left bereft as Hakkai drew his mouth away with tantalizing slowness. His eyes shone as he looked into Sanford's gaze; he licked his lips and they shone equally with the first overflow of Sanford's spill.   
  
"Why do y— you hold me back?" Sanford gasped, his cock pulsing with painful dissatisfaction.  
  
Hakkai laughed softly as his vines released Sanford's straining, aching legs to fall upon the bed. He crawled up between them until their faces met and their breaths mingled, until Sanford could taste the new muskiness upon his lips.   
  
"For I have not yet taken my pleasure in you. Though to see such ecstasy in your features is wondrous in itself. 'Tis a pity that you habitually deny yourself so, for I find your cantankerous brand of passion to be quite a joy."  
  
"You are a demon, a foul bastard, hellspawn," Sanford cursed and raised his hands from where they gripped the sheets — to strangle Hakkai perhaps — but then used them merely to anchor himself with a grip on Hakkai's shoulders as questing, slick vines slithered between the cheeks of his arse. He was buried in new sensation as Hakkai kissed him with his indecent lips and tongue and as the other touch circled the deepest part of his nethers. Trembling humors radiated from Sanford's core and wracked throughout his body.  
  
Then again Sanford was lifted, opened, and stretched in ways of which he'd never known his body capable, and then he felt the insistent push of Hakkai's prick inside him.  
  
It was an intrusion and yet one his body longed for, telling him that the nearer he could get to Hakkai's skin, the more of him he could experience this once in his lifetime, this otherworldly but overly polite sex-djinn that excited his senses in such an earthy manner.  
  
By short movements of his hips Hakkai thrust until they were joined fully, and then he thrust some more, grinding his own gasping lust into Sanford's body. Sanford accepted this, continued his new-found contortionism to bend his body and ease the passage until his calves were crossed high on Hakkai's straining back.   
  
Like this they moved together for some minutes, as Sanford sucked at Hakkai's tongue in his mouth and the ache of intrusion yielded to the once-more growing ache of desire in his loins.   
  
Perhaps his own brand of temper was not sweet, but nevertheless he could enjoy this mutual expression of passion, could appreciate the planes of Hakkai's handsome and intent face, feel the softness of his hair, growing damp with a sweat that at moments made him seem all too human.  
  
Soon their joining ceased to be painful altogether and Hakkai's thrusts knocked at Sanford's inner core in such a manner that he was shocked by jolts of pleasurable sensation, enhanced when Hakkai's vines circled his cock with what might have been teasing gentleness but which sent Sanford's body racing to its apex of pleasure. Just as he was about to tumble off the precipice of climax, however, he was again thwarted when the vines locked snugly around the base of his cock, holding him in that tight space between pain and crushing arousal.   
  
"My lot invariably affords me pleasure ... but not always such as — hah — this," Hakkai said to him, his green eyes unfocused. "I wish to experience it fully before I am torn away, because I admire your mind, sir."  
  
"Your cruelty knows n— no bounds," Sanford replied on a moan. He'd been half-joking but soon had to close his eyes against the expression of such admiration, the constant demands on his physical form. Minutes, hours, forever the pounding copulation seemed to go on, the huffing of their mutually harsh breaths, the shifting of his body into new positions, the expectation every second of finally reaching his climax.   
  
Impossibly, it seemed, each blow Hakkai perpetrated inside him brought the thrill of his body higher, but the vines curled about his cock held him at that pinnacle of pleasure. He longed so to reach past that apex, to release his body from the constant, near-terrifying barrage.  
  
In those moments Sanford almost wanted to thank God that such a thing would happen only once in his lifetime, for it was unbearably humiliating to cry out so, to speak words he forgot as soon as they left his lips.  
  
"Damn," Hakkai uttered after an eternal-seeming while, or perhaps that wasn't what he'd said — had that even been the King's English? — and his thrusts slowed, then halted, and he emitted a long "ohhh" of breath.  
  
Of a sudden the vines loosened and Sanford's every muscle tightened at once; his climax was instantaneous and harsh and messy, draining him so dry that even his joyful cries were hoarse. Then the vines released him altogether and his legs fell from their sideways-twisted position, protesting with sharp pains at such punishments as they'd endured.  
  
Hakkai fell upon him, tangled in those limbs, his chest moving harshly with his lungs' attempts to grasp air. Sanford was in much a similar state. After a minute or so, however, he gathered his strength to speak.  
  
"Why aren't you gone?" he managed.  
  
Hakkai laughed, a chortle that sounded sincere and happy. In an odd, tender manner, he brushed the hair from Sanford's sweaty forehead. "I simply choose not to be so for but a few moments, at which time it will no longer be my choice."  
  
"I'm going to thrash you to within an inch of your life," Sanford grumbled.  
  
"No need. You will be interested to know that now my summoned duty has been achieved, I am gifted with a measure of free speech."  
  
Sanford looked at him, at his black hair, the now-dormant tattoos that curlicued about his green eyes. He felt the stirrings of an answering smile, stirrings that he subdued with effort. "Do you wish to speak something?"  
  
"Yes." Hakkai untangled himself from Sanford and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "I am a bit of a liar. I apologize."  
  
With that he was gone, without even a puff of air to show his displacement, without anything to intimate that he'd ever been there except for the sweaty exhaustion of Sanford's body, and the spend cooling and sticking to his stomach and between his legs.   
  
And the memory of his presence. Sanford had experienced a sexual encounter which had astonished his senses but which had also finally satisfied the week-long desire in his flesh. His faith was more or less left where it had been before Hakkai had entered his life.  
  
He briefly considered trying to ascertain what Hakkai had lied about, but ultimately decided it would be a waste of his own worry.  
  
"Holy hell," Sanford said, and laid there for few minutes, until he could rouse himself to bathe.  
  
He stumbled to the washstand, where he found a folded note tucked beside it and sealed with blood-red wax. "The Rev. Gen Sanford, Vicar of St. Thomas and St. Theroux" was written upon it in spidery and antiquated handwriting. Sanford _tch_ ed to himself and cracked the seal. Inside, in the same handwriting, it said:  
  
"Greetings, sir. The book bearing this sigil may be used to summon those in my court. Perhaps & Mystical Etc. or their esteemed colleagues may know where to find it."  
  
Below the line of text was a symbol, which looked like a cross between a Chinese letter and the sign for the value of a pound. The writing continued beneath it.  
  
"I was summoned by one who wears spectacles, which I believe you may have deduced. I will further reveal that this individual is likely known to you, and had designs upon persons including yourself, of which I have seemingly taken advantage. So sorry. I hope you fare well, for I do admire your mind and believe the feeling may be mutual."  
  
"Not a bloody chance," Sanford grunted aloud. Below the note was signed with a squibble-squiggly mark, something Sanford did not recognize from any writing he'd yet encountered in his years upon the Earth.  
  
Sanford looked out the window. The light outside was slanting towards mid-afternoon but not yet fading into evening. Godless he may be, but he did not often shirk his duties, no he did not.  
  
Perhaps an hour later George returned and found him in the kitchen, cleaning his rifle. George was sans Lily. He looked at Sanford with raised eyebrows.   
  
"Such strange goings-on," he sighed. "What's afoot with you, Sanford?"  
  
"I am preparing to pay a visit to Dr. Nils," Sanford said. "Would you like to come along?"  
  
"Would I?" George said, examining his knuckles with a wide grin.  
  
"Romans 13:4," Sanford said, allowing himself to smile in return. "But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer."   
  
While those words may have been meant to apply to an Angel of the Lord and not to him, Sanford, per se, he nevertheless found them invigorating.  
  
  
 **End**  
  
  
Note: the title is from the Bible, Colossians 3:5: “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:”  



End file.
